Rite of Passage

Finally, I've added the missing link to my bike. I now have a pair of these sporty new clip less pedals fully installed. They go great with my shiny new Diadora shoes, too.

A friend suggested that I ride around the neighborhood just practicing getting in and out of them. My biggest fear is falling, but pretty much everyone I've talked to says that you can't avoid it. It's gonna happen. The goal, then is to minimize the potential witness pool to the future carnage.

So, last night, I decided to ride with the Wednesday night HoCo Cyclists. I've done a couple of weekend rides with the group, but this is a regularly scheduled Wednesday night year-round ride. First, though I rode a couple of miles around the neighborhood, as recommended, to do little more than test the new pedals. More specifically, to get my shoes in and out of them. I could almost immediately feel the added power the they bring when pulling up on them. After a few ins and outs, with no falls, I loaded up the bike and headed out.

I was surprised by the size of the group. At least 50 riders. At the appointed time, the leader sent the A's off. A few minutes later, the B's were gone. Not knowing where I'd fit, B or C, but leaning C, I didn't want to embarrass myself too much by having to keep back of the B group, so I went C short ride. The "short" route for the night was 22 miles versus 33 for the long, hilly route.

The comfort level of the new shoes is much greater than with the old ones and the pedals work pretty well. Soon after the ride started, I began passing people and within a couple of miles, found myself riding third of fourth of the 20-25 in the C group. I was also maintaining speed in the 15-16 range fairly easily. This would definitely not be possible with the old pedals. Of course, all was well and I was thinking that maybe I'd avoid that clip less rite of passage. As you've no doubt figured out, I was wrong.

Riding to the top of a short hill following a downhill, a stop sign appeared and the few guys ahead of me were stopped, just waiting for some of us (like me) to catch up. I stopped and took my right foot out of the pedal. No problem so far. Then, time to go. There was still a few feet of incline left. Of course, I'm in a big gear, more suited to downhill. Had I downshifted, all would be well, but as soon as I tried to go, I was at a standstill and just fell right over. It felt like it was in total slow-mo. I knew it was gonna happen, and it surely did. No problem. I got up and told the three other riders obviously holding their laughter I was okay. Got back on the bike and proceed to fall over once again. OY! Not my best effort avoiding the witness pool.

Now, smart guy (me) figures out to turn around and start on the downhill. DUH! Back on the bike and riding again. A few aches, but nothing more. It wasn't until a few miles later when I went to scratch my right ankle that I came back with blood on my hand. It wasn't until I got back to the start that I saw the blood on my right knee (pictured). It wasn't until I got home that I saw the nasty welt on my chest.

It's always fun to ride new places. I was just 10 miles west of home and at least 20 miles of the ride were new to me. Just nice, picturesque, country roads, a few cornfields and it seemed at one point, more churches than houses.

I was a bit disappointed that the other riders weren't very social. At one point, riding near the front of the pack, I definitely felt like I had crashed their party. My favorite part of these group rides is the bike chatter, especially since I'm not riding with any speed demons. These guys were not talking. Maybe I need to keep hanging with them until they feel like they're crashing MY party!


For better or worse, I made it through the ride. In case you're wondering, in these parts, apparently a relatively flat 23 miles is only 1800 feet of climbing. And that was without my small chain ring that I still couldn't get working from the weekend.

Looking forward to testing out the pedals again real soon. Gotta get that chain ring fixed first.

L'Chaim!